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AMASHIWI

"Culture is the heritage of us all. some may be more interested than others in the treasures of the past, but no one can fail to take a pride in his country's participation in the story of mankind, as represented in carvings, sculpture, music, paintings and the other arts. And there is a personal commitment to this, for no man can really say he is alone: we are all joined through our identity, with the cultures which are part of the mainstream of life"

- Simon Kapwepwe, Zambian Independence Freedom Fighter

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm"- Winston Churchill

"Try to be the rainbow in someone else's cloud"- Maya Angelou

"Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinion drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition"- Steve Jobs

Thursday, 29 October 2015

Zed Love

I am currently sitting in the Emirates Business Class Lounge at Dubai International Airport, en route from San Francisco to Lusaka. Five years ago I was at in this very airport returning home from LA after my masters, excited by what was to come as I transitioned back to living on African soil. Is it coincidence that there are so many parallels to my journey when I started this blog? Methinks not. Methinks the universe is trying to tell me something. I would be foolish not to listen. So thought I would ruminate over a coupla things on Thursday ;}.

I have clearly missed writing, and I am glad I have found my waxing lyrical mojo once more. I am so excited to go back home. I am so at peace with myself, and I am not worried about losing this feeling once I land. When I left Ghana in 2014 I wanted to stay on, as I felt I would not be able to bottle that spirit I found in me there and dose myself every time I needed a pick me up.

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﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿What I want to say in this post is, a year on from Zambia's 50th, despite the recent woes with Zesco's crippling, schizophrenic loadshedding, the Kwacha plummeting - further adding to the debilitating situation caused by our energy crisis, and tradition/ religion being twisted to be used as a scapegoat to continue bad practices, to excuse unethical behavior/ decisions, as well as to quell the masses by passing the buck of responsibility on to a higher power/ dogma, I see a bright future. There are still people out there finding a way to be and to do regardless of the situation. I still firmly believe that the way to﻿

Being un-CEOrious during
#ZambeefInYourTown
e18hteam national tour, photobombing
a picture with Zambeef Manager
and audience members in Lusaka.
Photo Credit: PR Girl

survive and thrive is to not base your dreams, goals and route to success on who is in power, whom you have to accept as the people have chosen and respect their decision and just get on with it. And if they haven't, well it is what it is, isn't it, so unless you can do something about it, once again you just have to find a way to live with that too. The same goes for waiting on the perfect conditions arising, or any other fixed parameters that people can use and abuse for their own ends. If all is just right great. More often than not it isn't, so you just have to find way to work with the cards you have been dealt. Zambia is far from stable enough to bank on things being just right and so I continue to adhere to the school of thought of just get it done. Be aware of the current environment, the possibilities and the pitfalls present and the potential for either in the near and distant future. Ultimately work with what you have and innovate perpetually, as being flexible and adaptable, is what is required. If you are in constant evolution, you can ride whatever wave you encounter as you navigate the treacherous sea that is development, the state in which Zambia and much of the world is still in. Even places in the developed world are no longer predictable, stable or giving, even when you do everything right.

Life is not meant to be easy, or there would be no point in living it as the highs and lows, the extremes and all that lies in between, is what makes it a great ride. Zambia provides that in spades. I like the challenge of it. I now have found a way to thrive in it. I am no longer there to prove a point, that I am meant to be there. I am now there because I choose to be, because it is the only place that affords the life that I cannot escape from, nor do I want to anymore. I was able to reflect on this at the most beautiful sanctuary while at my 10 year Stanford Reunion on Independence Day. I am truly blessed to be able to save to travel to my global family now because I live and work in Zambia, where I do not have to spend much to live a great life. I don't know how I would have survived being away from the majority of the people who make my life worth living without the internet. However, the nuances of communication are largely lost and so in the end, it becomes necessary to see people in the flesh and to feel physical places and reconnect with environments and certain milieus singular to places and congregations of specific people. I have found the beauty, the humour, the work hard play hard balance and the company to make Zambia my permanent base to interact with the world. Here are some more pictures from instagram that illustrate this:

Can't wait to land in a coupla hours. Hope the heat won't kill me though, it's scorching out there and the temperature differential is over 20C!

For more information about my journey this year and to keep up-to-date with everything going on with the film as well my other projects in Zambia and globally, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

About MbA

Ngosa Chungu is a Stanford, London School of Economics and University of Southern California alum who is committed to positively changing the face of the African continent, its people and its culture in global media. She has worked in Silicon Valley and Hollywood, for the BBC in London and helped set up the Leadership, Entrepreneurship and African Studies curriculum at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. Her professional passions include creating quality proudly Zambian and positively African media content for on and offline platforms. She uses blogging and social media to also personally contribute to the creation of African content online.

Currently she is promoting her first documentary film, e18hteam (eighteam), about the Zambian National Team: the Chipolopolo's triumph at AFCON 2012 in Gabon after the country suffered a terrible loss in 1993 due to a tragic plan crash taking the lives of 18 of the then football team in the same place. For more information go to http://www.facebook.com/e18hteam and http://twitter.com/e18hteam